Lily's POV
I watch my brother disappear.
Not physically—he's still here, technically. Still moving through the house, eating meals at the family table, existing in the spaces we share. His body shows up, his eyes blink, his mouth forms words when Dad asks him questions.
But the Gordon who came back from the hospital—the one who smiled when he thought no one was looking, who snuck out at night and came home with a softness in his expression I'd never seen before, who seemed to be finally, finally becoming someone real…
That Gordon is gone. This version is hollow, mechanical, a ghost wearing my brother's skin, going through motions without living inside them.
He wakes up, he showers, he eats breakfast without tasting it, staring at his plate like the eggs have personally offended him, he goes to physical therapy, comes home, retreats to his room.
Sometimes I hear movement through the walls—footsteps pacing, the creak of bedsprings, the occasional sound that might be crying or might be nothing at all. He doesn't play video games anymore, doesn't touch the gaming setup that used to be his whole world.
The headset sits on its dock, gathering dust. I know because I've checked.
Dad notices. Of course he notices—he's been hovering over Gordon like a helicopter parent ever since the hospital, asking questions, cooking meals, trying to force connection through proximity.
"Gordon seems down," he says to me one evening, voice low and worried. "Do you know if something happened? He won't talk to me."
"I don't know." The lie comes easily. Too easily. "Maybe he's still recovering. The doctors said it could take months."
"It's more than that." Dad's brow furrows. "He looks heartbroken, Lily. Like something's been taken from him."
Something has been taken from him. Someone. And I know exactly why.
The anonymous message sits in my memory like a splinter I can't extract. Every time I try to forget about it, something reminds me—a notification buzz on my phone, Naomi's face in a social media post, the word "engaged" appearing in a conversation and making my stomach lurch.
I set this in motion. I lit the fuse that brought Naomi back into Simon's orbit. I wanted Gordon to hurt, and now he's hurting, and it doesn't feel anything like victory.
It feels like watching someone drown while holding the rope that could save them.
It's not my fault, I tell myself.
Simon made his own choice. Gordon's heart was always going to break one way or another. I just... accelerated the timeline. The truth was going to surface eventually. Gordon was living a lie—with Simon, with Dad, with everyone. Someone had to force reality to intervene.
But the justifications ring hollow even inside my own head.
I didn't send that message to help Gordon face reality. I sent it because I was angry. Because he chose Simon over me on that porch, looked me right in the eyes and kept kissing the man I wanted, and something in me shattered into something ugly.
I wanted him to suffer. I got what I wanted. So why does it feel like I'm the one being punished?
I try to approach him. One evening, I knock on his door with a bowl of popcorn and a suggestion that feels pathetically inadequate: "Hey. Want to watch something stupid? Like we used to when we were kids?"
Gordon opens the door, and I almost flinch. His eyes don't quite focus on me. They're pointed in my direction, but they're looking at something else—something far away, something I can't see. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. Maybe weeks.
"I'm not in the mood," he says. The words come out flat, inflectionless. Not angry. Not sad. Just... empty.
"Gordon, come on. It'll be fun. I'll let you pick the movie…"
"I said I'm not in the mood." He starts to close the door, and I put my hand out to stop it.
"Talk to me. Please. I know something happened, I know you're hurting, and I just want to help."
"You can't help."
He meets my eyes for the first time, and there's something in his expression that makes me want to step back. Not hatred—I could handle hatred. This is worse. This is a bottomless well of pain that I can see but can't reach.
"No one can help. Just leave me alone, Lily." The door closes—gently, which is somehow worse than if he'd slammed it.
I stand in the hallway with my bowl of popcorn, feeling like the world's biggest fraud.
The next morning, I try again. Dad is reading the newspaper at breakfast, rambling about some new lawn fertilizer he's discovered—a topic so boring it should be a war crime, and I make a joke about it.
Something dumb about him starting a cult for grass enthusiasts. The kind of joke Gordon would have laughed at three months ago.
His mouth twitches just a little. For a split second, I see something human flicker behind his eyes.
Then it's gone—he excuses himself before finishing his coffee, mumbling something about an appointment, and disappears back into the depths of the house. Dad and I sit in silence, listening to his footsteps on the stairs.
"He's getting worse," Dad says quietly.
"I know."
"Should we call someone? A therapist, maybe? Someone who specializes in trauma?"
"Maybe." I push my own food around my plate, appetite vanished. "I'll mention it to him."
I won't mention it. Because a therapist would ask questions. Would dig into what happened, who hurt Gordon, why he's walking around like a shell of himself.
And eventually, the truth would come out—not just about Simon, but about the sister who sabotaged everything because she couldn't handle not getting what she wanted.
At night, I lie in bed and replay the moment on the porch.
Gordon's eyes meeting mine over Simon's shoulder. The terror and guilt I saw there—and underneath it, something I didn't understand at the time. Joy—desperate, defiant joy, the expression of someone finally getting the thing they've wanted for years.
He looked at me, he saw me standing there, frozen on the sidewalk, watching my worst nightmare materialize. And then he looked away. Closed his eyes, kept kissing Simon like I didn't matter enough to stop for.
I hated him for that. Still hate him, maybe. Some part of me that can't let go of the humiliation, the rejection, the knowledge that I lost before I ever had a chance to compete.
But watching him now—gutted, silent, fading away like a photograph left in the sun—I wonder if hate was ever the right word for what I felt.
Maybe it was just envy wearing a mask. Jealousy twisted into something that looked like moral outrage. I told myself I was protecting Simon from Gordon's deception. I told myself Gordon deserved consequences for his lies.
But Simon knew the truth. Simon chose Gordon anyway. And I couldn't stand watching my brother get the happy ending I'd never have.
So I took it from him.
The thought makes me feel sick. I roll over, press my face into my pillow, try to smother the nausea that's been living in my stomach for weeks.
I could confess. The option sits in my mind like a door I keep refusing to open. I could knock on Gordon's door, sit him down, tell him everything.
It was me. I sent Naomi a message. I told her Simon was confused, that his family's business needed help, that it might be a good time to reconnect. I'm the reason she showed up. I'm the reason any of this happened.
He might forgive me. He's my brother. Blood is supposed to be thicker than everything else, isn't it?
But I see his face in the parking lot—not the actual parking lot, but the one Gordon described in fragments to Dad when Dad pushed too hard for answers.
The way Gordon's voice went dead when he talked about Simon reaching for him and Gordon stepping back. The way he said I told him to go marry her like he was reading a eulogy.
If I confess, Gordon will look at me the way he looked at Simon in that parking lot. Like I'm someone who betrayed him. Like I took something precious and destroyed it for reasons he can't understand.
I'm not ready for that. I'm not ready to become someone my brother can't stand to look at.
So I say nothing. Do nothing. Watch Gordon fade and tell myself it's not my fault, it's not my responsibility, it's not my mess to clean up.
Simon made his own choice. Naomi made her own moves. I just... provided information. What people did with that information was up to them.
The lies taste like ash in my mouth, but I swallow them anyway.
Because the alternative is admitting that I'm the villain of this story, and I'm not ready to be that person. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
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